The last time the Cerritos College women's soccer team was defeated, it was November 6, 2012, when Pasadena City College handed them a 4-2 setback. Since that day, the Falcons went 36-0-1, won two CCCAA State Championships and a pair of National Championships. But on Tuesday, host East Los Angeles College ended that run with a 1-0 decision in their South Coast Conference opener. Cerritos (6-1-0, 0-1-0) will now host Long Beach City College (2-2-3, 1-0-0) at 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

"We just didn't play very well," said head coach Ruben Gonzalez. "It was one of those games where we had our chances, but just didn't finish. We seemed to tense up after falling behind and now we have to move forward and focus on our next game."

The Falcons maintained possession of the ball for the majority of the game, but the Huskie defense was up to the task of keeping the shots on goal to a minimum. Several crossing shots were turned away and in the first half, sophomore Krista Velasco (Downey HS) hit the post in the team's best chance to score.

But in the 64th minute, a failed clearing attempt turned into a scoring chance for East LA and resulted in a Carla Quijada goal on a chip shot from 18 yards out over sophomore goalkeeper Adrianna Salazar (Downey HS). On the play, Salazar came out of the goal crease to try and defend a ball that bounced past the Falcon defense. The ball worked its way back toward Salazar on a pass from Crystal Montoya, but Quijada was able to beat her to the ball and scored the game's lone goal. 

Sophomore Ashley Anaya-Webb (Yorba Linda HS/Cal State Long Beach), the team's leading scorer, had four shots on goal, while sophomore Nayeli Requejo (Bishop Amat HS) put three shots on net.

Photos by Andrea Lamb